Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

A tri­par­tite meet­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) to ad­dress long-stand­ing is­sues af­fect­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) fell through yes­ter­day.

TTUTA first vice pres­i­dent Adesh Dwari­ka said the meet­ing was post­poned. On the agen­da for dis­cus­sion with the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Jacque­line Charles and the CPO were in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues and the re­cent threats of vi­o­lence aimed at the stu­dents and teach­ers of Bar­rack­pore East Sec­ondary School.

“We’ve been try­ing for this meet­ing for the longest while, and then, of course, it was post­poned. TTUTA is ex­press­ing its dis­sat­is­fac­tion and dis­ap­point­ment,” Dwari­ka said.

TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin and oth­er mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion went to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to de­liv­er a let­ter ex­press­ing their dis­ap­point­ment and in­di­cat­ing they were look­ing for­ward to a meet­ing in the near fu­ture.

Dwari­ka said the Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the MoE, Wil­son Hen­der­son Jr, met with TTUTA’ pres­i­dent, first vice pres­i­dent, the To­ba­go Of­fi­cer and the gen­er­al sec­re­tary out­side the min­istry’s build­ing in Port-of-Spain to dis­cuss plans for meet­ings go­ing for­ward.

Be­sides leak­ages and a lack of fur­ni­ture af­fect­ing Aranguez North Sec­ondary School, Dwari­ka not­ed there are oth­er se­ri­ous is­sues, in­clud­ing the threat of vi­o­lence plagu­ing schools in the coun­try.

Speak­ing about the threats to harm stu­dents and teach­ers at Bar­rack­pore East Sec­ondary, Dwari­ka said it was more “struc­tured” than oth­er threats in the past and that such mat­ters of se­cu­ri­ty can ad­verse­ly af­fect stu­dents writ­ing ex­am­i­na­tions.

Dwari­ka said it was crit­i­cal to have dis­cus­sions with the min­istry go­ing for­ward to come up with “a rea­son­able so­lu­tion that would be very am­i­ca­ble for all of our mem­bers”.

In March, there was dis­cord in more than 49 schools in the South East­ern Dis­trict af­ter a threat was made, tar­get­ing teach­ers and stu­dents.

And in April of last year, sim­i­lar threats were made to over 100 schools across the coun­try.